University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Fall 2019 Moving Off Collections and Their Applications, in Particular to Function Spaces Aaron Fowlkes Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Fowlkes, A.(2019). Moving Off Collections and Their Applications, in Particular to Function Spaces. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5604 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Moving Off Collections and Their Applications, in Particular to Function Spaces by Aaron Fowlkes Bachelor of Science James Madison University, 2013 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Mathematics College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2019 Accepted by: Peter Nyikos, Director of Thesis Robert Stephenson, Reader Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School c Copyright by Aaron Fowlkes, 2019 All Rights Reserved. ii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Peter Nyikos, for his unfailing patience, dedi- cation, and enthusiasm in helping me with this project. I’d like to thank Dr. Robert Stephenson for reading my paper and aiding me with feedback. I would also like to thank Dr. George McNulty who helped tremendously with the formatting of this paper. Lastly I would like to thank both Dr. Mathew Boylan and Dr. Sean Yee. Without both of them my time at the University of South Carolina would have been immeasurably more difficult. Their constant support and encouragement was nothing but a positive influence on my experience and for that I am grateful. iii Abstract The main focus of this paper is the concept of a moving off collection of sets. We will be looking at how this relatively lesser known idea connects and interacts with other more widely used topological properties. In particular we will examine how moving off collections act with the function spaces Cp(X), C0(X), and CK (X). We conclude with a chapter on the Cantor tree and its moving off connections. Many of the discussions of important theorems in the literature are expressed in terms that do not suggest the concept of moving off but can be rephrased using it. The main goal of this paper is to bring these scattered pieces of information together into a single organized work. As a secondary goal we will endeavor to make a number of important theorems in the literature easier for non-specialists to understand by giving expanded versions of their existing proofs. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................. iii Abstract ................................... iv Chapter 1 Preliminaries ......................... 1 Chapter 2 Moving Off and Function Spaces ............ 5 Chapter 3 More Results and Proofs . 11 Chapter 4 Moving off and The Cantor Tree ............ 22 Bibliography ................................ 24 v Chapter 1 Preliminaries It is difficult, and perhaps impossible to find a mathematical statement that cannot be stated in a different way with alternative approaches to the same idea. Often times an alternative definition can make the statement of a concept appear entirely alien and yet be equivalent to its original form. This is a theme that will take hold in this paper. The concept of moving off and the related moving off property are lesser known and rarely studied topological definitions through which many commonly studied ideas can be restated and analyzed in a different light. Such an exercise is sometimes of worth and sometimes of less use, indeed there is typically good reason a definition or theorem is stated the way it is. However it is worth exploring as doing so results in new connections and insights that otherwise may not be seen. We will begin with a discussion of introductory topics and definitions. Definition 1.1. A topological space X is called Tychonoff if it is a completely regular T1 space. Otherwise put, each pair of distinct points in X have neighborhoods not containing the other and for any closed set A ⊂ X, x∈ / A, there is a continuous function f : X → [0, 1] such that f(x) = 0 and f(A) = 1. Note that the choice of [0, 1] could easily be replaced with the real number line in this definition. Henceforth the word “space” will mean a Tychonoff space. Most of our results involve sets of real valued functions so this is a prudent decision. We will now intro- duce the definition of a moving off collection of sets. Later on we will introduce one 1 use of the concept which has come to be known as the moving off property (MOP). Definition 1.2. Let K be a collection of nonempty subsets of X. Let C ⊆ P(X). Then K is said to move off C if for all C ∈ C there exists K ∈ K such that C ∩K = ∅. We also define the statement “K moves off A ⊂ X” to mean K moves off {A}. [Nyikos 2003] The last bit of this definition is added to make our discussions more convenient. At times we will consider moving off with regards to a set, in which case we simply mean the collection of sets consisting of that set alone. From here on, all collections of sets will be understood not to include the empty set. Again this is a stipulation made for the sake of convenience. We will begin the illustration of moving off by presenting some examples as well as a trio of lemmas. Example 1: X = R, K = C ={compact sets}. In other words, the collection of compact sets on the real number line moves off itself. This is because the set of compact singletons moves off every compact set. Example 2: In any compact space, no collection will move off the compact sets. And more generally it is impossible to ever move off a family of sets that includes the space itself. Example 3: If K has two disjoint members, then it moves off the singletons. Lemma 1.3. Let X be a set and K be the collection of all singleton sets in X. Let C be the collection of finite sets in X. Then K moves off C if and only if K is infinite. Proof. =⇒ Suppose K moves off C. By contradiction suppose K is finite. Then X is finite, so X ∈ C and therefore K does not move off C. So K must be infinite. ⇐= Suppose K is infinite. Then X is infinite. Therefore we have that C ⊂ X and C 6= X. So for each C ∈ C there exists a point p ∈ X such that p∈ / C for all C ∈ C and by definition {p} ∈ K. Therefore K moves off C. 2 In as much as every collection of singletons is disjoint, the following is a general- ization of Lemma 1.3. Lemma 1.4. Let X be a set and let K be a collection of disjoint finite sets in X. Let C be the collection of finite sets in X. Then K moves off C iff K is infinite. Proof. =⇒ Suppose K moves off C. By contradiction suppose K is finite. If that is the case then we have K = {K1,K2, ..., Kn}. Let J = {p1, p2, ..., pn} such that p1 ∈ K1, p2 ∈ K2, etc. Then J is finite but K does not move off {J} which is a contradiction. Therefore K must be infinite. ⇐= Let K be infinite and suppose K does not move off C. Then there exists F = {p1, p2, ..., pn} such that for every K ∈ K, K ∩ F 6= ∅. But since K is disjoint we have that for each pi ∈ F there is at most one K ∈ K containing it. But this would imply K is finite, which is a contradiction. So we have that K moves off C. Our third lemma expands on the previous two by discussing a collection of point- finite sets and how it relates to the finite sets. We first define what it means to be point-finite. Definition 1.5. For a set S, a collection K ⊆ P(S) is point-finite if for all s ∈ S there exist only finitely many K ∈ K such that s ∈ K. Lemma 1.6. Let X be an infinite set. Let K be a point-finite collection of finite subsets. Let C be the collection of finite sets. Then K is infinite if and only if K moves off C. Proof. =⇒ Let K be infinite and point-finite. So every point in X is in only finitely many sets in K. Let C ∈ C, then each point in C is in only finitely many sets in K. But K is infinite so there exists K ∈ K such that K ∩ C = ∅. So K moves off C. 3 ⇐= Suppose K moves off the finite sets and suppose by contradiction that K is finite. Then C = ∪{K : K ∈ K} is a finite set which has nonempty intersection with every set in K. Therefore K does not move off it, a contradiction. These lemmas are meant to get the reader’s feet wet, showing the idea of moving off and how it relates to other concepts of topology. 4 Chapter 2 Moving Off and Function Spaces Here we develop further some various topological ideas centered around moving off and function spaces. No theorems will be proven in this chapter but some will be restated and proven in the next. Our goal is to present a sequence of mathematical facts that display the usefulness of the notion of moving off.